


Dreams Delayed

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Series: Soulmate Dreams [15]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Politics, Reconciliation, Soulmate AU, Soviet Russia, implied racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 18:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10996194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: Misha's wedding sends Yakov and Lilia on a trip down memory lane, from the night they met to now.(For those who haven't read any of the others in this series: Misha is an OC.  He's one of Yakov's skaters who is several years older than Viktor and would have been retired before YoI canon.  His wedding is the catalyst for this story, but you don't need to know anything else about him.)





	Dreams Delayed

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of during chapter [2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10864707/chapters/24152913) and a little into [3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10864707/chapters/24175236) of "Here in the Real World". Which, yes, means that this can be taken as canon.

Weddings always put Yakov in a nostalgic mood. The copious and free-flowing alcohol certainly helped, but mostly, it was watching the happy couple. Misha had earned it. Emiliya was a lovely woman who was a good, stabilizing influence in Misha’s life. She’d just finished her university degree, and it brought a bit of a tear to Yakov’s eye to see how happy Misha and his bride were with the new life they were beginning.

“Misha seems so happy.” Lilia took the empty seat beside Yakov. “I hope this works out for them.”

“Even if it doesn’t, this should always be a happy memory for him. As much of it as he remembers, anyway.”

Lilia laughed softly. “I honestly remember so little of our wedding. The fight you got into with my father before he’d let you take me to the church, of course, and the ceremony itself. This part… almost nothing.”

“It was fun. There’s a lot I don’t remember, but I remember enough to know that.” The song ended, and one of Misha’s cousins started a toast. Yakov grabbed the nearest bottle and refilled his glass and Lilia’s. They both joined in the shouting until Misha and Emiliya started their kissing.

Afterward, Yakov scanned the room, looking for his younger skaters. Yurio had managed to fall asleep curled up on the floor, and Yuuri had moved a chair over to sit in front of him as protection from drunken dancers. Mila was twirling around the dance floor, picking up stray flowers and ribbons and tucking them into her hair. Viktor was also dancing, very uncoordinatedly. He pointed that out to Lilia.

“Hold this.” Lilia handed Yakov her drink and went to talk to Yuuri. Probably a good idea. They probably should get Viktor out of there before he passed out or started throwing up. When Lilia came back, she was fretting a little. “Am I doing the right thing, not going with them?”

“Lilia. I don’t care how drunk Vitya is, he’s not going to hurt Yuuri.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because the only two people who know Vitya better than I do agree with me. If Yuuri had any fear at all, he would have asked you to go with them, or me, or even taken Yurio with them. If Viktor thought there was a chance, he would have stopped drinking when he made Yuuri switch.”

Lilia nodded and took her champagne glass back. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I am. Those two are in love in a way you and I never were.”

“How so?”

“If either of them had to make the choice, they would choose their soulmate over their career without a second thought.”

Lilia smiled, but it was a sad one. “Ah. Yes. We were never like that, were we?”

 

Yakov wasn’t looking forward to this. With luck, his soulmate would be ten years younger than him or something else that would justify not going to her until he’d retired from competitive skating. In Soviet Russia, you had to choose. Your soulmate or your competitive career. Anything less than a complete focus was seen as not devoting yourself to your state. Yakov couldn’t imagine the stranger who would be enough for him to throw away not only his dreams and his livelihood, but also his good standing with the Soviet leadership and possibly putting his family at risk.

The ballet studio around him made him smile. Common ground, then. The dark-haired woman standing in front of him was beautiful, and definitely had the figure of a ballerina. She looked him over. “Hello. My name is Lilia Baranovskaya.”

“Yakov Feltsman.”

LIlia's eyebrows shot up. “The figure skater? The Soviet Union’s only gold medal winner in the last Olympics for skating?”

“That’s me. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ll be watching, and when you retire, perhaps we can talk. I’m quite okay with this, Yakov, since it means I can focus on my career. Soulmates don’t mix with ballet, and I have an audition with the Bolshoy Ballet next week.”

“I wouldn’t want to deprive our country of a future prima ballerina. Will you dance for me?”

“Yes.” Lilia’s brow wrinkled. “Shouldn’t you be turning eighteen soon?”

“Tomorrow’s my birthday. This is my dream.”

“Tomorrow’s my birthday, too. This is my dream.”

They both burst into laughter at the realization. Lilia wiped her eyes as she recovered. “Well, that solves the problem of how we convince each other years from now that this was a mutual decision and we are soulmates.”

 

Yakov retired twelve years later, after one last Olympics against his doctor’s advice. He didn’t do as well as he might have liked, but he was old, and he’d blown out his knee too many times. He’d kept an eye on the rise of the Bolshoy Ballet’s star, Lilia Baranovskaya, and wrote her a letter of congratulations when she made prima ballerina. He didn’t expect a response of any sort, but after he announced his retirement, Lilia sent him a large stash of letters she had written over the years, congratulating him on his achievements as a skater, offering sympathy for failures and injuries, and generally supporting him. The most recent letter in the bunch explained.

“I wrote these, but I never dared to send them, for fear of the consequences it could have for your career if you were caught corresponding with your soulmate. I plan to retire in five years, unless injury forces me out earlier. Given my age and the competition from younger dancers, I must dedicate so much of myself to the ballet that I don’t have much to offer a soulmate, but I haven’t forgotten you and I would like to establish a correspondence, if you would be interested.”

 

Yakov was interested, and for five years, they wrote back and forth frequently while Yakov established himself as a coach and Lilia fought off younger dancers eager to dethrone her. Yakov attended her retirement dance – not the first performance starring Lilia Baranovskaya that he had attended, as he’d always enjoyed the ballet, but the first where he would be more than just another audience member. After the show, when Lilia was brought out for a final ovation, Yakov was brought on stage so that they could announce their engagement. They were married as soon as they could get everything together, and less than a year later, their daughter was born. Avrora, named for the Sleeping Beauty, was their only child, as Lilia felt she was too old for more. Like her parents, she showed a remarkable talent for dance, and at seven years old she left home to enter a full-time dance academy.

Lilia remained part of the Bolshoy Ballet for a time, as a choreographer and instructor at the academy, where she took a particular interest in a Japanese ballerina who became her protégé. When Minako left the Bolshoi after it became clear that the directors would never give a Japanese dancer a chance at becoming a soloist, let alone a prima ballerina, Lilia left as well to teach ballet to children and to work with Yakov’s skaters.

Over time, Lilia and Yakov struggled to find time for each other, between the travel their careers required, their dedication to their students’ training, and the fact that Yakov tended to find the most dramatic skaters Lilia could imagine. Not all of Yakov’s students lasted under Lilia’s training, and when Irina Plisetskaya retired, for the first time in years Lilia found herself with no skaters to teach. It wasn’t long before Yakov found another skater, Viktor Nikiforov, but it became clear that he was hopelessly inflexible and that ballet was not the right path for him. With their careers separating so thoroughly, Lilia thought it was time that she and Yakov acknowledged that they should do the same with their marriage.

 

Then Yuuri Katsuki showed up – her protégé’s protégé, a skater who could have been a prima ballerina himself. Irina Plisetskaya’s son shared her talent for dance and her dedication to skating. Lilia’s life was once again tangled with Yakov’s, and given that Yuri Plisetsky would likely be around for at least twenty years, it seemed quite likely that Yakov would retire before things could fall apart again.

And now, here they were at a wedding. Maybe it was the love in the air. Maybe it was the many glasses of champagne she’d gone through for various toasts. “Yakov? Are you ready to go?”

“I suppose staying to shut down the party is best left for the young.” Yakov drained his glass of champagne and set the empty flute on the nearest table. “Do you want an escort home?”

“No. I want to go with you. I miss you, Yakusha.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“So have you.”

“I don’t think it’s any secret that I miss you and want you back.”

“I’m not drunk enough to not know what I’m doing, Yakusha. I will remember this in the morning, including that I initiated it and pressed my case.” When Yakov still hesistated, Lilia leaned forward and kissed him gently. “Please?” As she’d known he would, Yakov caved immediately and went to get Yurio.

 

Yakov was not still in bed when Lilia woke up the next morning. She went looking and found him cooking breakfast for the both of them. “Good morning, Yakusha.”

“Lilenka. Any hangover to deal with?”

“A bit. I’ve had worse. How are you?”

“The hangover’s not too bad. Just waiting to hear what the fallout from last night is.”

Lilia went over and kissed Yakov’s cheek. “I think that if it weren’t for the two boys you’ve got living with you, it would be time for you to come home. Soon, I hope. When Yuuri and Viktor are ready.”


End file.
